The SMB AI Starter Toolkit
A practical, no-jargon guide for small business owners who want to start using AI this week. No technical background required. No expensive tools needed to begin.
Includes: the 10 highest-ROI automations for small businesses, a curated AI tools directory, and effort vs. impact ratings for every item.
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The 10 automations to start with
Automate your lead follow-up
Set up an automated response that goes out within 5 minutes of any new enquiry. Tools: Make.com or Zapier + any CRM.
Create a content brief template
Write one master prompt that generates your content briefs. Feed it a topic and get a full brief in 60 seconds.
Set up an AI email drafting workflow
Use a prompt template for your most common outgoing email types: proposals, follow-ups, rejections. Cut drafting time by 70%.
Build a simple FAQ chatbot for your website
Train a basic chat widget on your top 20 customer questions. Reduces support volume and improves first-touch experience.
Automate your weekly reporting
Connect your key metrics (sales, traffic, leads) to an AI that writes a plain-English weekly summary every Monday morning.
Use AI for proposal and quote generation
Build a prompt template that turns a client intake form into a draft proposal. Review, adjust, and send in under 20 minutes.
Transcribe and summarise all your meetings
Use a transcription tool on every client or team call. Get a summary with action items in your inbox within 2 minutes of hanging up.
Build a knowledge base your team can ask questions to
Upload your SOPs, FAQs, and process docs to a RAG (retrieval) tool. Staff find answers in seconds instead of asking you.
Set up automated appointment reminders
Automate SMS and email reminders for all booked calls and appointments. Reduces no-shows by 40 to 60% for most businesses.
Repurpose every long-form piece into 5 short ones
After every blog post, video, or podcast, run it through a repurposing prompt. Get captions, tweets, email snippets, and a short-form script automatically.
AI tools directory
Curated and opinionated. These are tools that actually work for small businesses without requiring a developer to set up.
Writing and content
ChatGPT
General writing, drafting, brainstorming
Claude
Long-form writing, analysis, nuanced tone
Notion AI
Writing inside your existing workspace
Automation and workflows
Make.com
Connecting apps and automating multi-step workflows
Zapier
Simple app integrations, beginner-friendly
n8n
Advanced automation, self-hosted option available
Meeting and voice
Otter.ai
Meeting transcription and summaries
Fireflies.ai
CRM-connected meeting notes and action items
ElevenLabs
Voice AI for customer-facing agents
Customer support
Intercom Fin
AI support agent for websites
Tidio
Affordable AI chatbot for small businesses
Crisp
Free tier available, solid for early stage
Research and knowledge
Perplexity AI
Real-time research with citations
NotebookLM
Ask questions about your own documents
Mem.ai
AI-powered note-taking and knowledge base
Social media and marketing
Buffer AI
AI-assisted social scheduling and captions
Opus Clip
Turn long videos into short clips automatically
Predis.ai
AI social content from a single prompt
Want help actually implementing any of this?
The toolkit shows you what to build. We build it with you. Book a free call and we will identify the single highest-value automation for your specific business.
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